How to Write a CV for a Job in the Philippines: Format, Photo, Expected Salary and Character References

CV vs Resume in the Philippines: Curriculum Vitae Means the Same Job Application Here

In Philippine hiring the document is almost always called a CV, and it is not the ten-page academic CV of the UK or US convention. It is a one-to-two page job application document that happens to carry more personal detail than a Western resume.

Job boards use both words interchangeably. The upload button may say Resume while the recruiter's email says CV. They want the same file. What matters is the content standard: date of birth, address, civil status, a photo, references, and often a stated expected salary all belong in it.

Applicants arriving from markets where personal data has been stripped out of resumes for privacy reasons tend to send something that looks half-finished to a Philippine HR officer. Many companies still screen the first round against a checklist of exactly those fields, so an otherwise strong candidate gets filtered on a formatting habit.

Send a PDF unless told otherwise, and name the file with your surname and the position. Word files still get accepted, but layouts drift between machines and a broken CV is a bad first impression you never get to explain.

Philippine CV Format and Job Application Requirements: A Sample Section Order to Copy

Use this order and your CV will look familiar to any local recruiter:

1. Personal Information — full name, mobile number in +63 format, email, current address to the city and barangay level, plus a formal photo in the top right corner.
2. Career Objective or Summary — three or four lines naming the role you want and what you bring. This section is used far more here than in Western resumes; skipping it reads as low effort.
3. Work Experience — reverse chronological, with company, job title, month and year range, and three to five verb-led bullets that state outcomes rather than duties.
4. Educational Background — reverse chronological. Local CVs often list secondary as well as tertiary education. Foreign degrees should carry the full official English name of the institution.
5. Skills — languages first if you are multilingual, then software and professional licences.
6. Seminars and Trainings — a genuinely common Philippine section. Industry workshops and short courses belong here.
7. Character References — two or three people with name, position, company and phone number.

Optional but useful additions: expected salary, earliest availability, and any Philippine government numbers you already hold such as TIN, SSS or PhilHealth. Listing those signals that you are already registered in the local system, which saves the employer onboarding work.

Keep an NBI Clearance in mind separately. Most legitimate employers request one at the offer stage rather than at application, and the process is covered in the NBI clearance guide.

Six Ways a Philippine CV Differs From a Western Resume

One: the photo stays. Anti-discrimination practice in North America and much of Europe has pushed photos off resumes. Philippine CVs keep them. A plain white or light blue background, formal attire, slight smile.

Two: personal details are normal. Date of birth, civil status, nationality and sometimes religion appear as standard fields. You are not obliged to fill every one, and leaving religion blank costs nothing, but the block itself is expected.

Three: character references are checked. This is the item most foreign applicants under-prepare, and it is covered in its own section below.

Four: expected salary is often a required field. Online application forms will not submit without it.

Five: two pages is fine. The one-page dogma does not apply here, because the extra sections need the room. Three pages is too many unless you are in academia or medicine.

Six: the register is more formal. Complete sentences, courteous phrasing, and an actual cover message. A three-paragraph email body works perfectly well as a cover letter; a bare attachment with no message reads as careless.

Read through those six and you will usually find your existing CV needs sections added rather than a full rewrite. The rewriting effort belongs in the wording, which is a separate problem.

What Is a Character Reference in the Philippines and Who Should You Name

A character reference is a named person, with a working phone number, whom the employer may genuinely call before making an offer. Background checking is taken seriously here, particularly for finance, customer-facing and administrative roles, so treat this section as live rather than ceremonial.

Selection rules that hold up in practice:

• Former supervisors and colleagues carry the most weight because they can speak to your actual work.
• Teachers, clients and business partners are acceptable, as are friends who can describe you in a working context rather than only as a nice person.
• Do not list immediate family. It reads as padding.
• Always ask permission first. A referee who answers the phone confused does more damage than having no references at all.

Format each entry in four lines: name, current position, company, mobile number with the correct country code. If a referee sits outside the Philippines and is hard to reach by phone, note the best contact method and time window so the recruiter does not waste an international call.

New arrivals with no local network can absolutely use overseas referees. Just confirm the person can hold a short conversation in English, or state that verification by email is preferred. Fresh graduates may use a thesis adviser or internship supervisor.

One boundary worth knowing: recruiters ask for references, not for scans of your family's identity documents. Requests that escalate that far are a warning sign, and the patterns are described in this guide to high-salary job scams.

Should You Put Expected Salary on Your CV? Yes, as a Range

State a range rather than a single number. Many Philippine application forms make the field mandatory and some reject the word negotiable outright. A band roughly twenty percent wide, followed by a note that it is negotiable depending on the total package, keeps the conversation open without capping you before the job scope is clear.

Before naming any figure, work out what the total package actually contains, because Philippine employers rarely compete on base pay alone:

• Statutory 13th month pay, calculated from basic salary actually earned during the year — see how 13th month pay is computed.
• HMO health coverage, and whether dependents are included.
• Transport, communication and meal allowances, and whether housing is provided.
• For assignment roles, flights home, home leave and schooling support for children.

An offer with a lower headline salary can easily out-earn a higher one once HMO and allowances are counted. Negotiation structure for assignment packages is set out in the expatriate package negotiation guide, and employers benchmarking local pay can start with what salary to offer in the Philippines.

Never inflate your previous salary on paper. Late in the hiring process you will likely be asked for BIR Form 2316 from your last employer for year-end tax consolidation, and the numbers have to match.

This guide does not quote figures. Pay varies sharply by industry, city and language ability, and the only reliable calibration is several live offers compared side by side.

Writing the CV in English: Local Conventions and Common Slips

Philippine business English is close to standard American written English: plain, complete sentences, no ornamental vocabulary. The tells that mark a CV as written by a non-local are usually mechanical rather than grammatical.

• Dates are written as June 2023 – Present, not 2023.06 or 06/2023.
• Tense follows the job: past tense for previous roles, present tense for the current one. Mixing them within a section is very visible.
• Avoid filler claims such as responsible for various tasks or hardworking and diligent. Replace them with checkable facts: team size, volume handled, systems launched.
• Use local abbreviations correctly — OJT for on-the-job training, GWA or CGPA for grades, tertiary for undergraduate study. Getting these right signals familiarity.
• Keep Taglish out of the written CV, however natural it is in conversation.

On languages: if you speak Mandarin, treat it as a marketable skill rather than background. Write Mandarin (native), English (business proficient), Hokkien (conversational) instead of a vague bilingual. Hokkien in particular carries real weight with trading firms around Binondo, where the Chinese-Filipino business community has used it for generations.

If you are still calibrating how much English daily life and work will demand, this breakdown of English levels in the Philippines is a realistic baseline, and Mandarin-first roles are described in the Chinese-speaking support role guide.

Applying for Jobs as a Foreigner: How to State Your Visa Status

State it, and state it near the top. Hiring a foreign national in the Philippines requires an Alien Employment Permit and a 9(g) working visa, both of which cost the employer time and money. Discovering that in round three of interviews wastes the process for both sides.

Three common positions, three different lines to write:

• Already holding a 9(g) and changing employers — add a line reading Visa Status: holder of 9(g) working visa, transferable. This is a strong selling point because it removes most of the sponsorship burden. The mechanics are in changing employers on a 9(g).
• In the country on a tourist visa — write that you are currently on a tourist visa and require employer sponsorship for AEP and 9(g). Do not claim immediate availability to work. Working while on a tourist visa is not permitted, and employers willing to ignore that usually have other problems; see working on a tourist visa.
• Still abroad — give a realistic start date and confirm you can supply authenticated academic and civil documents for the permit application.

Which occupations are restricted, and which sectors actively want foreign hires, is set out in what jobs foreigners can do in the Philippines. The permit process itself, including who files and where it commonly stalls, is in the AEP guide.

If the employer has never sponsored a foreigner, being able to explain the sequence calmly is itself an advantage. Companies frequently outsource that leg through services such as work permit and HR support, and telling an interviewer that the paperwork can be handled externally often moves a hiring decision more than another line of experience would.

Where to Send It: Five Channels That Screen Differently

The same file does not perform equally everywhere, because each channel filters differently:

1. Local job boards. You complete an online form before the attachment is ever opened, and the form fields are the filter — expected salary, availability and location are usually mandatory. Attach the PDF anyway.
2. LinkedIn. Favoured by multinationals and senior roles, and more tolerant of a clean international layout. A professional headshot works better here than a passport-style photo.
3. Facebook hiring groups. Heavily used by small and mid-sized employers and within the Chinese-Filipino business community. Post a short introduction publicly and send the full CV only by private message; a public CV exposes your address and phone number to everyone.
4. Recruiters and manpower agencies. They will reformat your CV, sometimes removing what you wanted emphasised, so keep your own master version. The difference between agency placement and dispatch arrangements is explained in manpower agency and dispatch models.
5. Referrals inside Chinese-invested companies. Roles circulate fast through personal networks here. Keep a bilingual pair: one Chinese page for the person referring you, one English page for HR. Sector coverage is in jobs at Chinese companies in the Philippines.

On pacing: Philippine employers generally reply more slowly than applicants from mainland China expect. A week of silence is normal, one polite follow-up after two weeks is appropriate, and repeated messages hurt. The interview sequence itself is described in the Philippine recruitment process, and current demand conditions in the hiring market overview.

Finally, calibrate expectations before you draw conclusions from a handful of rejections. How hard the search actually is depends heavily on language, sector and immigration status, which this realistic assessment of job hunting breaks down.